Sympathy Between Humans Part 5

Cisco rolled forward to collect the two twenties from the bookcase. When he didn't take it anywhere, I understood that he didn't want to put the money away while I was in his apartment, so I wouldn't see where his stash was. He was careful.

"You know," I said, "forty dollars doesn't seem like a lot of money."

"I don't plan to get rich doing this."

"Then why do it at all?" I asked.

"I fill a need," Cisco said. "Believe it or not, people do fall through the cracks of the health-care system. Some don't have insurance. Some are illegal immigrants. They're intimidated by ERs, the crowds and the waits and tension there. I provide a service."

"And, of course, they pay you," I pointed out, playing devil's advocate.

"I'm part of what the World Bank calls the informal economy," Cisco said. "It's accepted practice in many countries."

"But you said you don't have the equipment you'd like," I pointed out.

"You'd be surprised what's available from medical-supply houses," he said. "No drugs, of course. But I've been able to get much of what I need for my practice here, which is mostly minor injuries, burns, things like that. I'm also able to give rea.s.surance to people with small problems, like yours. And when people have more serious problems, I'm an early-warning system. When people come to me with symptoms that trouble me, or conditions that are beyond my capacity to treat, I tell them in no uncertain terms to get to a clinic or hospital."

"About how many patients do you find yourself sending away to a real doctor?" I said.

The warmth died away from Cisco's dark eyes. "I am a real doctor," he said.

"I didn't mean-" I said.

But it was too late; I'd said the wrong thing. "I think we're finished here," Cisco said, rolling backward to put a little more s.p.a.ce between us. "Good night, Sarah."

s.h.i.+loh and I rented the first floor of an older two-story house. It afforded more privacy than you'd expect, because behind it, on the other side of a barbed-wire fence, was an open field and then the railroad tracks on their raised man-made berm. I pulled into the narrow driveway alongside the house and went in through the back door. The outer screen door gave way grudgingly, creaking. It was stiff, in need of maintenance I hadn't yet given it. rented the first floor of an older two-story house. It afforded more privacy than you'd expect, because behind it, on the other side of a barbed-wire fence, was an open field and then the railroad tracks on their raised man-made berm. I pulled into the narrow driveway alongside the house and went in through the back door. The outer screen door gave way grudgingly, creaking. It was stiff, in need of maintenance I hadn't yet given it.

The place had been s.h.i.+loh's before it had been mine, and it was still largely his personality that was imprinted throughout the gently shabby interior. Probably a number of women would have made their own mark by now, but I wasn't one of them. I'd always felt a certain peace among s.h.i.+loh's eclectic paperback books and weathered furniture.

I flicked the kitchen light on and set my shoulder bag on the cluttered kitchen table, pus.h.i.+ng aside a stack of unread mail and the legal pad on which I'd been trying to compose a letter to s.h.i.+loh. I was much more physically tired than the evening's work accounted for, but I understood why. The visit to Cisco's had been wearying. Genevieve, a veteran interrogator, had taught me that lying is hard on the body: it speeds the heart and demands more oxygen for the bloodstream.

I went into the bathroom, reached for the faucet handle in the bathtub, and turned on the hot water. Then, on impulse, I put the stopper in the drain rather than starting a shower. Sitting on the edge of the tub, I watched the water begin to pool.

The last piece of advice my mother ever gave me was not to take baths in motel rooms, because you never know who's been using the bathtubs or how well they've been cleaned. Strange advice, but we were in a motel at the time.

It was ovarian cancer that had claimed my mother: swift, silent, deceptively painless in its early stages. After treatments at our local hospital in rural New Mexico were unsuccessful, my mother had sought treatment at a research university in Texas. My father had approved of the idea. They'll fix you up, They'll fix you up, he'd said glibly, in denial to the end. He did not come along, but sent me to accompany her. he'd said glibly, in denial to the end. He did not come along, but sent me to accompany her.

When my mother went in for her exploratory surgery, I waited in the oncologist's office, drinking a Dr Pepper and looking through the glossy four-color books Dr. Schwartz kept out for visitors and their families. At nine, I didn't read as well as I should have, but if the book had a lot of pictures, I would have my nose buried in it, looking studious and rapt to the world outside. That's what I was doing when Dr. Schwartz returned a half hour later.

Still in his surgical scrubs, he walked past me into his inner office, picked up the phone on his desk, and dialed. At nine, I had the preternaturally good hearing that many children do, and both ends of the conversation were audible to me.

"Sandeep, it's me," he said. "If you want to move your schedule up a little bit, you can. I'm already done with the exploratory I had at eleven-thirty."

"That was quick."

"Unfortunately, yes," my mother's doctor said. "Totally metastasized. When I saw how far it had gone, I just closed up. We were out of there way ahead of schedule."

Dr. Schwartz made another phone call immediately after that one, and this time, I immediately recognized the voice on the other end.

"I think it's time you drove out here," Dr. Schwartz said, lighting a cigarette. "I'd like to talk to you in person."

"You can talk to me now, Doctor," my father said. my father said. "Is my wife not in shape to travel by herself?" "Is my wife not in shape to travel by herself?"

"Actually, you should be prepared to stay here awhile," Dr. Schwartz said.

A long pause. "You're not telling me Rose's case is terminal, are you?" "You're not telling me Rose's case is terminal, are you?"

Dr. Schwartz looked up to see me looking at him. He took the phone away from his face. "Sarah, sweetie," he said, "why don't you run down the hall and get yourself something to drink?"

"I still have half of the Dr Pepper you bought me," I said, pointing.

"Then can you get me a diet something? c.o.ke or Sprite, doesn't matter."

In the hall, I'd asked a tall black orderly what terminal terminal meant. He'd said, "I dunno, kid." I'd been young enough to believe him. meant. He'd said, "I dunno, kid." I'd been young enough to believe him.

A gurgling noise interrupted my thoughts. The water in the tub had reached the drainplate. I shut it off and hunted under the sink for a jar of bath salts, poured a generous amount into the steaming water, and got in. As I did, I thought for no reason of Marlinchen Hennessy, my visitor of four days ago.

The a.s.sociation seemed to come from nowhere, but it couldn't have. Did the bath salts- cleanly herbal instead of cloyingly floral- bring up a scent she'd been wearing? No, that wasn't it.

Marlinchen had told me about her mother's premature death; I had just been remembering my mother. There was the link. She'd said her mother had died ten years ago, which would have made her seven at the time.

I had mishandled Marlinchen Hennessy. Some of that was undoubtedly due to the way she'd looked. My first impression of Marlinchen Hennessy had been of a young woman of perhaps 21, and even after she'd told me she was 17, I hadn't really internalized it. I'd spoken to her as bluntly as I would have to an adult, forgetting that even adults are sometimes shaken up by a cop's natural directness.

Certainly, Marlinchen hadn't helped her own case with her evasions and defensiveness. But I'd been a cop long enough to know that sometimes people need help the most when they appear to deserve it the least. Ultimately, Marlinchen had made it clear that the burden of finding her brother had fallen on her, and had reached out to me for help, and I'd run her off.

Perhaps there was something I could do to remedy that. If nothing else, Hennepin County didn't pay me to look the other way when one of its citizens behaved strangely, rus.h.i.+ng away rather than answering seemingly harmless questions.

The deputy in Georgia who'd taken the missing-persons report on Aidan had a slight smoker's rasp riding over his thick, interrogative accent. "You have some information about Aidan Hennessy for me?" he asked. who'd taken the missing-persons report on Aidan had a slight smoker's rasp riding over his thick, interrogative accent. "You have some information about Aidan Hennessy for me?" he asked.

"No," I told Deputy Fredericks. "I was hoping it was the other way around. I hardly know anything."

I hadn't contacted Marlinchen Hennessy yet, deciding to get a little background information first, just to get my footing. Which was why I was squeezing this phone call in before my regular duties at work.

"Hennessy's from your area," Fredericks said. "That's why you're calling?"

"Yeah," I said. "Let me tell you about it." I ran quickly through the scant information Marlinchen Hennessy shared with me, finis.h.i.+ng by saying, "When I said I was going to have to talk to her father, she became distraught and left."

"If she could have hung up on you, she probably would have," Fredericks said, laughter in his voice. "That's what she did to me."

"There's more to the story?" I said.

"Some," he said. "I didn't know the kid, Aidan, but I know the guy he was living with. Pete Benjamin. His family's been here forever. I guess Aidan had been living with him for five years. Anyway, he's obviously a runaway."

"How do you figure that?" I asked him.

"His things were gone," Fredericks said. "And he was a good-size boy, about six feet. Worked on the farm. I don't think anyone would mark him as someone to mess with."

"When did Benjamin report the kid missing?" I asked.

"He didn't," Fredericks said. "I didn't find out about this until just recently, when Miss Hennessy called me. Nearly the first thing I asked Pete was why he hadn't come to talk to someone about this. He said he'd called the father, Hugh, right away. Hugh Hennessy said that the kid would probably show up at home in Minneapolis, and Pete shouldn't worry about it."

"That's pretty casual," I remarked.

"Well, I guess the boy had done it before. Got a Greyhound all the way back to Minnesota, trying to go home."

"Well, if Aidan got on a bus this time around, or even hitchhiked, he'd be here by now," I said.

"Is that a joke?" Fredericks asked me.

"What do you mean?"

"Aidan Hennessy ran away six months ago."

"Six months months?" I echoed.

"I guess Miss Hennessy didn't tell you that," Fredericks said.

"You're saying Hugh Hennessy never filed a report or called you guys?" I said, wanting to be sure about it.

"Yeah. Our first contact from the Hennessys came from the daughter, two weeks ago. And when I asked to talk with the father, I got the same song and dance that you did: he's up north, he can't be reached. I told Miss Hennessy to get on that, contacting him.

"Then, a few days later, I get another call from Miss Hennessy, wanting to know what progress has been made. I turn it around, ask her her what progress has been made on getting her father to call me. She gets upset and hangs up on me." what progress has been made on getting her father to call me. She gets upset and hangs up on me."

"And that's everything, to date?" I asked.

"Well, I filed a report, and I sent his picture out, but I've heard nothing. I've got to tell you, for a teenage runaway, he's keeping a real low profile. If he were arrested, even if he were using a false name, the fingerprint card would pretty much tell us it was him."

"You have fingerprints on him?" I said, frowning. "Was he arrested down there?"

"Nothing like that. Miss Hennessy didn't tell you about her brother's hand?"

"No," I said.

"Her brother is missing a finger on his left hand. The card would have only nine prints on it."

"I didn't know that," I said. "But then, our conversation wasn't exactly a long-ranging one."

"She's a funny one, isn't she?" Fredericks said. "I guess she started looking for a detective up in the Cities to listen to her story, and you got elected. Did you explain to her about jurisdictional lines?"

"Yeah," I said. "But you know what's interesting to me in all this?"

"The father?" Fredericks said.

"Yeah," I said. "He knew his son was missing and told his friend he'd take care of it, but then he never did anything. And then the daughter, Marlinchen, is willing to nag us about finding her brother, but she won't bother her old man up at his cabin. And when I pressed her about it, it upset her to the point that she walked out on me."

"It is odd," Fredericks said. "If you find out anything up there I should know about, give me a call."

"I will," I told him.

The deputy I reached at a sheriff's substation in Cook County, near Tait Lake, identified himself as Begans. He sounded quite young. reached at a sheriff's substation in Cook County, near Tait Lake, identified himself as Begans. He sounded quite young.

"So what can we help you with?" Begans asked.

"I'm trying to get in touch with a man who's got a cabin up there," I said. "I'm told there's no phone, and he's holed up writing a book."

"Nice work if you can get it," Begans said. "What's the name?"

"Hugh Hennessy," I said. "I need to talk to him about a missing-persons case. Don't scare him, just ask him to get in touch at his earliest convenience."

"His... earliest... convenience," Begans said slowly, obviously writing it down. "Okay, whereabouts is the cabin?"

"I don't know," I admitted.

"Well, that's that's going to slow things down," Begans said, sounding bemused. going to slow things down," Begans said, sounding bemused.

"I know, I'm sorry," I said. "I don't have a lot of information."

"You know, we've got a guy here who's three weeks from retirement," Begans said. "He knows everything about this area, after thirty-five years here. Let me ask him about Hennessy."

"That'd be great," I said.

After we'd signed off, I went into the kitchen to make tea. The cold symptoms were abating, just as Cisco had suggested they would. In another day, I thought, I'd probably feel good enough to crave coffee again. The prospect made me feel better.

I was leaning against the counter in the break room, waiting for the microwave to finis.h.i.+ng nuking the water for my tea, when a quiet voice in my mind said, apropos of nothing, Isn't it possible that you're sending that nice kid Begans on a wild-goose chase for nothing? Isn't there a big a.s.sumption here you haven't checked yet? Isn't it possible that you're sending that nice kid Begans on a wild-goose chase for nothing? Isn't there a big a.s.sumption here you haven't checked yet?

What if Hugh Hennessy were in Minneapolis and simply refusing to become involved in his oldest son's situation?

With the lemon tea steeping on my desk, I dug Marlinchen Hennessy's phone number out of my desk and dialed it.

"h.e.l.lo?" A boy's voice, adolescent.

"Is Hugh Hennessy there?" I asked.

"No, I'm sorry," the boy said.

"Is he going to be in later tonight?"

"No, he's out of town." He did not offer to take a message. "This is Liam, can I help you with something?" he asked.

"No, I don't think so," I said. "I think I'd better call back later."

The story that Hugh Hennessy was out of town was cohering. So far.